Santiago de Chile:
Metropolitan Governance

With the vision of fostering collective action to address the shared challenges of Gran Santiago, we organized and conducted a seminar that brought together mayors and officials from 34 different municipalities, enhancing their capabilities and sparking metropolitan collaboration.

The challenge

The sprawling metropolis of ‘Gran Santiago de Chile’ is home to 7.3 million residents, ranking as the country’s largest, the 6th in South America, and the 59th worldwide. However, this urban giant is divided into 34 individual municipalities, each with independent governance. This administrative fragmentation presents a significant challenge, as these municipalities often wrestle with shared issues such as air pollution, traffic congestion, water scarcity, and housing. These challenges frequently surpass local capacities, requiring customized local solutions that also extend beyond the national scope.

To address this situation and envision a more sustainable, inclusive, and resilient Gran Santiago, Chile’s National Corporation for Fostering Production (CORFO) and the País Digital Foundation embarked on a collaborative journey, bringing together the mayors and technical experts from the 34 municipalities within the Gran Santiago metropolitan region. Leveraging Anteverti’s combined expertise in urban management, smart cities, and content curation, both institutions reached out to us, entrusting us with the design and implementation of the capacity-building sessions in Chile.

Our approach

Considering Santiago’s unique context and our prior event organizing experience, we proposed a two-day seminar for Gran Santiago’s municipal leaders and their technical teams. On October 18th and 19th, 2017, the ‘Encounter towards Sustainable, Inclusive, and Innovative Cities’ workshop unfolded in Santiago de Chile.

The first day kicked off with a morning session for the 34 mayors, offering an overview of the Smart Cities model. It highlighted its potential benefits for Santiago’s municipal development strategies through case studies, debates, and presentations by global experts like Aníbal Gaviria, Governor of Antioquia, Colombia; Juan Ellis, former General Coordinator of the Inter-American Development Bank’s Initiative for Emerging and Sustainable Cities; and Pilar Conesa, our CEO and curator of the Smart City Expo World Congress.

The second day catered to the technical and managerial staff from Santiago’s 34 municipalities, featuring Smart City concept presentations, lessons learned, opportunities, and interactive expert-led workshops. Given varying sizes and budgets among these municipalities, showcasing diverse Latin American experiences in enhancing citizens’ quality of life and addressing urban needs was pivotal.

The workshop’s methodology was meticulously tailored to suit participants’ unique profiles and specific activities.

The impact

The seminar provided a collaborative workspace for municipal leaders and their support staff. It allowed them to gain firsthand insights from internationally renowned experiences and identify common paths toward a smart, sustainable, and climatically resilient metropolis model.

This gathering marked a significant step in Gran Santiago’s journey toward more efficient and integrated metropolitan management. In 2021, this journey culminated with the creation of the Metropolitan Governor position, elected through direct democracy by the citizens of the metropolitan communes in the capital of Chile. This marked a significant milestone in the city’s pursuit of coordinated governance and sustainable growth.